Fisher Cats Workout Day and Bonus DVD

Brett Cecil will join the Fisher Cats in Reading, Pa., and start Monday's game in a rematch of the 2011 Northern Division playoffs. "Let's face it. He's probably not going to be real happy about having to come back to the minors. This is a good place to get your stuff together. I'm confident he'll get his game together and everything will be fine," said Fisher Cats pitching coach Tom Signore, who coached Cecil for part of last season at Las Vegas.

Koby Clemens is built like a house and generates a lot of pop with a short-to-the-ball swing ... Dude hits bullets during BP ... "Lot of Dunkin Donuts up here, which is a plus," said Drew Hutchison ... I watched LHP Aaron Loup throw a side session today and his slider was absolutely ridiculous ... Brad Glenn has big-league power and may win a complimentary night at the Hilton Garden Inn by homering off the hotel beyond left-center field this season ... Cool event tonight for Fisher Cats season ticket holders, who met the 2012 players and fan favorite/Twitter hero Justin Jackson ... In this clip, Brian Jeroloman works the video camera and takes a, um, "artsy" closeup of Drew Hutchison during a photo shoot for the New Hampshire Union Leader ... Here is the second half of the wicked awesome interview with Hutchison and Mike McDade on Media Day:

Fisher Cats, Primaries and Granite State Mountain Men

Today I got swept up in the political realm and wrote a page 1 centerpiece for the New Hampshire Union Leader, attempting to capture the atmosphere and vibe of downtown Manchester, N.H. "You are the presidential Super Bowl,” a 72-year-old visitor from Wisconsin said. Having the first presidential primary is a pretty cool thing. The Double-A Fisher Cats were actually named the Primaries for a couple weeks in the winter of 2003.

Fans, however, didn't like the name Primaries because they didn't want baseball mixed with politics. Thousands of fans protested by signing an on-line petition, and soon the franchise conducted a Name the Team contest. The Fisher Cats name defeated the Manchester Millers (by 22 votes), followed by the Granite State Mountain Men, New Hampshire Granite and New Hampshire Primaries. A Fisher Cat is actually a "fisher" or weasel-like creature that is often blamed for any missing cats in New Hampshire. It's nasty night hunter that's known to chow down on porcupine and rabbit.

One day when I arrived at my father's mountainside home in Bridgewater, N.H., this fisher was hanging in a tree, shot by a neighbor.